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Table of Contents
Chapter 52
THE ALBATROSS
South-eastward from the
Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a
sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh,
from my lofty perch at the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so
remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheries --a whaler at sea, and long
absent from home. As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached
like the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral
appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all her spars
and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over with
hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was to see her
long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemed clad in the
skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly
four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to the mast, they swayed
and swung over a fathomless sea; ..
2 and though, when the
ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men in the air came so nigh
to each other that we might almost have leaped from the mast-heads of one ship
to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeing us
as they passed, said not one word to our own look-outs, while the quarter-deck
hail was being heard from below. Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale? But
as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the act of
putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand into the sea;
and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make himself heard without
it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the distance between. While in
various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod were evincing their observance of
this ominous incident at the first mere mention of the White Whale's name to
another ship, Ahab for a moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would
have lowered a boat to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind
forbade. But taking advantage of his windward position, he again seized his
trumpet, and knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer
and shortly bound home, he loudly hailed -- Ahoy there! This is the Pequod,
bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific
ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them to address
them to----- At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly,
then, in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish,
that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted away
with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and aft with the
stranger's flanks. Though in the course of his continual voyagings Ahab must
often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to any monomaniac man, the
veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings. Swim away from me, do ye?
murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. There seemed but little in the
words, but the tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old
man had ever before evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far had
been holding the ship in the wind to diminish ..
3 her headway, he cried
out in his old lion voice, -- Up helm! Keep her off round the world! Round the
world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does
all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very
point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the
time before us. Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we
could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange
than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the
voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented
chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human
hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in
barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. ..
4 The cabin-compass is
called the tell-tale, because without going to the compass at the helm, the
Captain, while below, can inform himself of the course of the ship. ..
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